Early-to-mid 20th century In the early-to-mid 20th century, the phrase
politically correct was used to describe strict adherence to a range of ideological orthodoxies within politics. In 1934,
The New York Times reported that Nazi Germany was granting reporting permits "only to pure 'Aryans' whose opinions are politically correct". Later in the United States, the phrase came to be associated with accusations of
dogmatism in debates between communists and socialists. According to American educator
Herbert Kohl, writing about debates in New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
1970s In the 1970s, the American
New Left began using the term
politically correct. In the essay
The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970),
Toni Cade Bambara said that "a man cannot be politically correct and a chauvinism#Male chauvinism|[male] chauvinist, too".
William Safire records this as the first use in the typical modern sense. The term
political correctness was believed to have been revived by the New Left through familiarity in the West with
Mao's Little Red Book, in which
Mao stressed holding to the correct party line. The term rapidly began to be used by the New Left in an ironic or self-deprecating sense. Thereafter, the term was often used as self-critical
satire. Debra L. Shultz said that "throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the New Left,
feminists, and
progressives... used their term 'politically correct' ironically, as a guard against their own orthodoxy in social change efforts". In her essay "Toward a feminist Revolution" (1992)
Ellen Willis said, "In the early eighties, when feminists used the term 'political correctness', it was used to refer sarcastically to the
anti-pornography movement's efforts to define a 'feminist sexuality'."
Stuart Hall suggests one way in which the original use of the term may have developed into the modern one:
1980s and 1990s Allan Bloom's
The Closing of the American Mind, a book first published in 1987, Professor of English literary and cultural studies at
CMU Jeffrey J. Williams wrote that the "assault on ... political correctness that simmered through the Reagan years, gained bestsellerdom with Bloom's
Closing of the American Mind". According to Z.F. Gamson, Bloom's book "attacked the faculty for 'political correctness'". Sociologist
Anthony Platt says the "campaign against 'political correctness'" was launched by Bloom's book in 1987. An October 1990
New York Times article by
Richard Bernstein is credited with popularizing the term. At this time, the term was mainly being used within academia: "Across the country the term p.c., as it is commonly abbreviated, is being heard more and more in debates over what should be taught at the universities." In May 1991,
The New York Times had a follow-up article, according to which the term was increasingly being used in a wider public arena: The previously obscure far-left term became common currency in the lexicon of the conservative social and political challenges against
progressive teaching methods and curriculum changes in the secondary schools and universities of the U.S. Policies, behavior, and speech codes that the speaker or the writer regarded as being the imposition of a liberal orthodoxy, were described and criticized as politically correct. After 1991, its use as a pejorative phrase became widespread amongst conservatives in the US.
Herbert Kohl, in 1992, commented that a number of
neoconservatives who promoted the use of the term "politically correct" in the early 1990s were former
Communist Party members, and, as a result, familiar with the
Marxist use of the phrase. He argued that in doing so, they intended "to insinuate that egalitarian democratic ideas are actually authoritarian, orthodox, and Communist-influenced, when they oppose the right of people to be racist, sexist, and homophobic". such as
racial,
social class,
gender, and legal inequality, against people whom conservatives do not consider part of the social mainstream.
Jan Narveson wrote that "that phrase was born to live between scare-quotes: it suggests that the operative considerations in the area so called are
merely political, steamrolling the genuine reasons of principle for which we ought to be acting...".
Polly Toynbee, said "the phrase is an empty, right-wing smear, designed only to elevate its user", and in 2010 she wrote "the phrase 'political correctness' was born as a coded cover for all who still want to say
Paki,
spastic, or
queer". Another British journalist,
Will Hutton, wrote in 2001:
Glenn Loury wrote in 1994 that to address the subject of "political correctness" when power and authority within the academic community is being contested by parties on either side of that issue, is to invite scrutiny of one's arguments by would-be "friends" and "enemies". Combatants from the left and the right will try to assess whether a writer is "for them" or "against them". Geoffrey Hughes suggested that debate over political correctness concerns whether changing language actually solves political and social problems, with critics viewing it less about solving problems than imposing censorship, intellectual intimidation and demonstrating the moral purity of those who practice it. Hughes also argues that political correctness tends to be pushed by a minority rather than an organic form of language change.
Right-wing political correctness "Political correctness" is a label typically used to describe liberal or left-wing terms and actions but rarely used for analogous attempts to mold language and behavior on the right.
Alex Nowrasteh of the
Cato Institute referred to the right's own version of political correctness as "patriotic correctness".
As a socio-linguistic phenomenon In subsequent academic scholarship, some scholars have examined political correctness as a form of linguistic and moral reform. Linguist Geoffrey Hughes described political correctness as "liberal in its aims but often illiberal in its practices," identifying a tension between its reformist intentions and its perceived coerciveness. Similarly, Norman Fairclough has analyzed political correctness as part of a broader discourse of linguistic and moral reform, in which "changing language practices is part of changing social relations" and "critical awareness of language" is linked to the pursuit of "fairness and inclusiveness". ==Usage==